I suspect my pastor & our counselor are asking me to be the change I want to see in my wife, because the affair is not physical, and neither one has the $$ to fly half way around the world to make it so.

(I can hear you scoffing already...)

So what are your thoughts on giving her time to change, to kill the affair and work on our marriage? Especially in light of the fact that she says she told him to stop & let us work things out? I know that sounds like she's keeping him on the back burner, I just want to know what you think...

I think I would be much more likely to tell her parents & her friends if the affair WAS physical.

One other reason I want to keep seeing our MC is that she's seeing us individually, and my wife hasn't had someone to talk to & confide in for a long time. Except OM.

I know she's telling my wife that the affair has to stop. She said that the first 2 sessions while we were there together. Besides me, she has a lot of family & work stress in her life, and MC is working with her on HER as well.

Make any difference to your advice?

Thanks.

You guys got me feeling like I'm an idiot. Not sure I like that...

The problem with your plan is that she can't change unless she ends her affair. Her affair is an addiction and she can't sober up until all contact is ended. And she will have no motivation to end her affair unless you expose it. An emotional affair is just as dangerous to your marriage as a physical affair. She can and will leave you for the OM if they decide to do that.

The longer you enable the harder it will be to save your marriage. Affairs thrive on secrecy so keeping it a secret only serves to enable the affair.

This looks a lot like Plan A to me.


Yep. Sounds like she's cake-eating, keeping her options open. I recommend you spend more time reading about Dr. Harley's program on this web site. The answers to your questions are here, presented in a very thorough, logical manner. It will also help you understand where some of the posters are coming from in their advice to you.


I don't understand why you differentiate between her EA and a PA. She has emotionally detached from you because she has become emotionally attached to someone else. Why is it okay for your wife to go out and get a boyfriend as long as she doesn't sleep with him? The PA is only an escalation of an event that's already occurred. You need to break this up, ASAP.

Yes, working on her is a distraction from your marriage problems. That is great that the C is telling her to end her affair, but as you can see, that has not worked.

P.s. even if she does end her affair it still needs to be exposed. Exposure helps lift the fog and motivate the WS to take the necessary steps to redeem herself and work on the marriage. The more people who know about the affair, the more people to hold her accountable.

And by the way, since this is her ex-husband, the SF portion of this relationship is a known quantity (and probably quite sensationalized by selective memory and separation of time). To my mind, that puts this situation on shaky ground as far as splitting hairs between and EA/PA.

Good luck, BI2.

What's SF?

SF is sexual fulfillment.

If her own HUSBAND and vows are telling her to stop having an affair isn't good enough then why would she listen to this stranger?

I understand you feel your counselor has a good plan. Why? Because it's an easy plan. It's a talk talk talk plan without any real action. ANY alcoholic will agree to "stop drinking" by cutting down their booze slowly. I don't know any addict that quits in that manner.

You've asked what we think of your plan? I have to be honest - you are pretty much asking for "false recovery" -> believing it's over when it isn't.

You also said:
She has no money to go meet him anyways.

I'll bet she said the same thing about you when she said she felt "trapped" in her first marriage with him. "I can't leave him, I have nowhere to go". I know this probably hurts to hear, but history is repeating itself and you just don't see that because it hurts too much to see.

Mine did.

Start looking at it in terms of what conditions she must satisfy for you to remain married to her and your outlook will probably change.

Expose this far and wide. It's not vengeance, it's asking others that know you to directly intervene and to use their influence to get her to knock it off.

The ex-husband's current wife would, of course, be tops on the list.

You are doing your wife a favor by exposing. She won't think so at first but will come to realize it was for the best!

My H and the OW told each other to stop hundreds of times before they finally shagged up at the park one night. Giving her time to stop = giving her time to go further.

Waywards do not have the will power to stop on their own. They are addicted to each other.

Sorry you are here ... I would be very weary of your pastors advice. The reason I mention this is becasue recently I tried to help my wifes step dad as we discovered my mother in laws affair.

So my wifes step dad now sees how his pastors advice only enabled his wife to continue her affair becasue she was lieing about it to everyone and trying to make her hubby out to be the bad guy. They took the pastors advice over mine and then she got him locked out of the house and filed a police report against him before he knew what had happened so he couldnt go home claiming he was a stalker and abusive. She lied to everyone and had everyone convinced that step father in law was the crazy one. He failed to take my MB advice from the moment I figured out my mother in law was having an affair (i had recorded a conversation with her where she admitted to us she was) and step father in law opted to do nothing and hope she just came to her senses ... EVEN after i did all the foot work for him (i exposed for him on FB since he was not computer literate) .. he still refused becasue he figured GOD would fix it for him .. so he did nothing which resulted in him losing his wife to another member of his churches worship team, which was who she was having the affair with. He regrets not listening to my advice (which was MB advice that is being reinforced here to you) since everything i said would happen did .. and my words rang truer than the pastors and the counselors they visited that they listened to instead. He phones us up now and then and always mentiones how he wished he would have listened to us from the start because he probably would not be getting divorced now.

Pastors and counsellors DO NOT know how to restore love ... and many that i have seen be involved have only enabled it to continue beacsue they dont want to be the "bad guy" for either spouse ... seems weird especially when the bible says to expose it and shed light on the darkness.

MNG

He's recently widowed

No one here has answered my original question, which you may feel is irrelevant to the more immediate need to "out" her.


What happens if & when we hash everything out?? She will just be a different person without feelings for him even if she sees him??

When I originally discovered the pics he sent & their relationship, I told her to stop it all. I have told her several times since that she needs to stop all contact forever.

Her response has been "And what if I dont?" or "I don't think I can."

BrokenIn2,

If they meet up over something like that, then you could very well expect them to move from an emotional to a physical affair. That is why MB believes in no contact FOR LIFE. No, it does not matter that they have mutual adult children, no, it doesn't matter what the reason is. NO CONTACT FOR LIFE. I won't say it will "rekindle" feelings because quite frankly... the fire has never extinguished. And it won't be unless you do it - SHE'S TELLING YOU SHE WON'T STOP!

Nobody feels that it is "irrelevent" -> but since we all know the way MB is done, we know that NO CONTACT is an absolute requirement which cannot be changed, so the answer to your question is simple: if she values your marriage, it won't happen. No matter what.

What if the daughter wants to invite him?

Its not that its irrelevant - in fact NC for life is very important - its just that its less pressing than exposure right now.

Every piece of contact he makes with her today puts money into her lovebank - a lovebank that existed before your marriage - and so the affair becomes more entrenched. Exposure helps stop that, and you can tackle NC when she is willing.

But to answer your question, she would have to be totally repentant and agree to never see him for any reason. She would never be able to see him without feeling triggered.

This is why you need her fully on board and why the persuasive aspects of exposure are so important.

It also stops accidental social contact if your family/friends/social circle are aware and asked to support you.

Yes, but thats the affair talking. The thing you are trying to bust up.



What she is actually saying here is

"I can have both of you" "I want what I want and you cant stop me" and "I'm clearly insane to talk of carrying on my affair right to my hubands face".

These are very typical wayward responses. She wont stop while she has the privacy to do whatever she wants. Namely her addiction.

It is no contact for life. No exceptions. If your wife values her husband as she vowed, she will choose to not put herself in those situations. If her grown adult children KNEW what was happening (ie. exposure), they may support her in that manner. The point of exposure is not to hurt anyone - it is also for you to gain support of others in keeping your marriage together.